New brewery coming to downtown Whitewater

Friends turned business partners (left to right) Karl Brown, Christ Christon, Thayer Coburn, and Joe Coburn hope to have their nano-brewery open by January. The Whitewater brewery will be located in the northeast corner of Lakefront Pub, 111 W. Whitewater St., and operate as a separate entity. It will provide beer on-site for Lakefront Pub.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

Second Salem Brewing Company is named after Whitewater's old nickname.

Whitewater was referred to as Second Salem in the late 19th century and early 20th century after construction of the Morris Pratt Institute, a spiritualist college.

The brewery's beers are named after historical events or places in Whitewater.

NEARBY BREWERIES

Each of the Second Salem Brewing Company partners has conducted what they call “research” by taste testing beers at several breweries. The men emphasized that craft beer drinkers will travel the distance to try different craft brews.

“We see this as being a real draw for tourists and an interesting thing to bring downtown,” Christon said. “If we can do something to bring people downtown, it will be good for the community and economy.”

Joe Coburn said there's a market for a craft brewery in Whitewater, and he's confident the four business partners have what it takes to be successful.

“We have an experienced brewmaster who has opened commercial breweries,” Coburn said. “But then also Christ has operational experience running food service retail operations for almost 15 years.”

The brewery will be equipped to produce eight to 10 kegs of beer a month. The short-term goal is to have four flagship beers on tap by the end of the school year.

Working in the brewery will be Brown, the beer historian and UW-Whitewater history professor, and one assistant.

Brown has worked overseas in managing and installing breweries in Japan and Greece and worked at perfecting his own home brews in the United States.

He said another goal is to be environmentally conscious. The brewery will be entirely electric and donate leftover grain to local farmers.

Down the line, the brewery will convert an unused section of Lakefront Pub into a taproom.

People will be able to taste the beers from the brewery and other breweries, eat appetizers and eventually go on a tour of the brewery.

A year or two from now, the partners hope to be in the position where they need to look for a larger facility to increase production.

The business owners aren't worried about the economy. They referred to the craft brewing industry as robust.

“In 2009, craft brewing had a 9 percent growth, and that was the year every single industry tanked,” Brown said. “Craft brewing is still going strong.”

Market saturation is a concern, Brown said, but not in Whitewater.

They don't seem to be worried about competition, either.

Thayer Coburn said the craft brewing industry is a friendly community. Brewers share experiences on what works and what doesn't.

“A lot of the mindset in the craft brewing community is they're not fighting each other, not trying to grab market share from one another,” Coburn said. “They're trying to grab it from Miller, Coors.”